Miami Horror are the band d’jour at current. Their ’70s inspired debut has been a long time coming – years in fact. But now that’s it’s finally here, original band member Ben Plant couldn’t be happier. He took some time out to chat with OUTinPerth about the band’s debut album, Illumination.
Can you describe your genre for the readers who might not be familiar with you? I struggle because of the album, it’s so hard to pigeonhole. Even to say its disco influenced pop psychedelica is too broad really.
You started off just as yourself – what was your catalyst to start messing around with music? I’d been playing around since I was 15 or 16. It just came about out of the ability and chance to create things. Once I realised people were into it somewhat I started taking it a little bit more seriously.
You became somewhat of an overnight success – how did it feel when you were approached by the likes of Datarock and The Presets to make remixes for them? It was just very positive. It drove me to really push myself and spend a lot of time with each mix to make sure it was perfect. So yeah, I just tried as hard as I could.
At what point did you decide to add the other musicians to make the live act? Probably around the time of the EPs release. There was a lot of talk between me and my manager about having some form of live show and whether it was going to be a matter of two people or four people. It’s good the way it turned out because the album was a little bit ‘liver’ and a little bit more classic as opposed to genre-fiable in a sense.
You’ve been described as being perfectionists, the album taking 10 months to mix – what can you tell us about this? We had the album finished pretty much how it is by the end of last year and I just wanted to make sure everything was perfect. Sometimes it’s just a process of wondering whether turning up the treble on this synth is right or wrong. And often it doesn’t make much difference but a lot of that time was spent fine-tuning.
So what are you personal highlights on Illumination – what are you proudest off on this album? I’m really proud of the song Illuminated. It’s almost some form of interlude. It’s inspired by Pink Floyd. It just encompasses a vibe of where we are at at the moment. I’m also really proud of Echoplex – it encompasses where we are going and is quite progressive.
Would Miami Horror prefer to play under the sea or in outer space? In outer space. Definitely not a huge fan of water and the darkness of what is in the sea.
If Miami Horror were a transformer what would they transform into? A rocket ship into the cosmos.
Illumination is out now through EMI.
Scott-Patrick Mitchell
